Category: Tourism Places

Tanah Lot is a rock formation off the Indonesian island of Bali. It is home of a pilgrimage temple, the Pura Tanah Lot (literally “Tanah Lot temple”)

Tanah Lot means “Land in the Sea” in the Balinese language, located in Tabanan, about 20 kilometres (12 minutes) from Denpasar. The temple sits on a large offshore rock which has been shaped continuously over the years by the ocean tide.

Tanah Lot is a Balinese Hindu Temple on the rock and the seawater encircles it when the sea water is tide. It is looked to be adrift in on the ocean and owns the magnificent view of sunset in the late afternoon. There are several points to see this temple with all amazing view. At this temple, we can find other Hindu temples like that make it a holy place in Bali. There are sea snakes dwell the cave in front of Tanah Lot Temple which you can see with small donation and those of them are believed the holy snake by the local community.

Tanah Lot is claimed to be the work of the 15th-century priest Nirartha. During his travels along the south coast he saw the rock-island’s beautiful setting and rested there. Some fishermen saw him, and bought him gifts. Nirartha then spent the night on the little island. Later he spoke to the fishermen and told them to build a shrine on the rock for he felt it to be a holy place to worship the Balinese sea gods.

The Tanah Lot temple was built and has been a part of Balinese mytology for centuries. The temple is one of seven sea temples around the Balinese coast. Each of the sea temples were established within eyesight of the next to form a chain along the south-western coast. However, the temple had significant Hindu influence.

At the base of the rocky island, poisonous sea snakes are believed to guard the temple from evil spirits and intruders. A giant snake purportedly protects the temple, which was created from Nirartha’s scarf when he established the island.

The function of this temple can be realized from the function of the main temple building which is located in the temple main area. In this place, there is a main temple to worship the god in form of Dewa Baruna or Bhatara Segara, the sea power. The media of worship to this god is the temple building with 5 storied meanwhile the 3 storied temple building in north part of this area is purposing to worship to Dang Hyang Nirartha.

The unique animal can be seen in this temple area is the snake which are generally can be met in the coast. Part of its stomach there are no athwart skin, there is only small skin, but this sea water snake very noxious but snakebite case are very seldom happened, because the sea water snake generally very passive.

Tanah Lot owns a magnificent view in particular at the sunset time where the sun slows down to the earth stomach. Every visitor who is paying a visit to this place will be marveled to see the beauty panorama of Tanah Lot. Beside of this temple, there are other temples which can be seen on your visit to Tanah Lot like Batu Bolong Temple, Batumejan Temple and Enjung Galuh Temple.